The consultant for the construction of Bagamoyo Fishery Port in the Coast Region will be availed in September this year, the ministry of livestock and fishery development has revealed.
Public Relation Officer at the ministry Judith Mhina told the Guardian on Sunday mid-week that currently the government is evaluating consultancy bidders for the project to be opened after 90 days.
“We are still evaluating consultancies who showed the interest to bid for the project to evaluate its cost. Consultancy will be opened after 90 days in accordance with the national procurement procedures” she said.
Ms Judith also underscored that the process has followed the laid down procurement rules and regulations saying the consultancy will chart project’s cost paving way to find a firm to execute it.
It was earlier announced that the construction of the Bagamoyo fishery port would have commenced January this year and be completed in 2017.
The project that is expected to boost the country’s economy will have the capacity to handle twenty times more cargo than Dar es Salaam Port, currently the country's largest port in the country.
Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Servacius Likwelile represented the government during the signing of a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the government and the Chinese government which will execute the project at the cost of Sh89bn.
Dr Likwelile said the port would improve the country’s economy especially after various data showing that Tanzania was losing a lot in trade and commerce opportunities due to inefficiency of Dar es Salaam port.
According to the Tanzania's Ambassador to China Philip Marmo, upon completion, Bagamoyo port will have the capacity to handle 20 million containers annually as opposed to Dar port with the capacity of 800,000 containers.
The much awaited project will also entail the construction of a 34 kilometre road connecting the district and Mlandizi and also a 65 kilometres railway connecting Bagamoyo to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) and Central Railway line.
“We will be building a fourth generation port of high standard. This port will also facilitate China-bound shipments of minerals from Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Tanzania and then to China via the Indian Ocean.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
Bagamoyo port to fuel Africa's economic boom
16th March 2015
The government plans to make the USD11bn Bagamoyo Mega port project, slated to have its foundation stone laid in July this year, the region's biggest port that will serve as the engine of Africa's economic boom.
The Chinese-backed project would dwarf Kenya's port at Mombasa, east Africa's trade gateway some 300 km (180 miles) to the north, and include an industrial zone and rail and road links to capitalise on growth in a region hoping to exploit new oil and gas finds.
"It will be the engine for economic activity not only for Bagamoyo but for the entire region," said district executive Ibrahim Matovu, speaking from offices overlooking beaches where ship-builders hammer out wooden dhows as they have for centuries.
In its heyday, Bagamayo was a gateway to the heart of Africa for colonisers, with trade goods surging in from the Indian Ocean, and timber, ivory and countless slaves exported from the east coast harbour.
Then Bagamoyo, which looks out towards the island of Zanzibar, fell on lean times for more than a century now.
Many doubt the plan can succeed and ask if Bagamoyo is even the right location for a port, given it is just 75 km (50 miles) up the coast from Dar es Salaam and far from gas deposits off Tanzania's southern coast.
Politics also plays a role.
President Jakaya Kikwete comes from Bagamoyo and many see the port as his legacy project. But a groundbreaking ceremony was delayed from July and the project is unlikely to be revived during an election season that culminates in October, when his successor will be chosen.
In addition, Tanzania faces a budget crunch and has been cutting infrastructure spending and the country lacks a credit rating, making borrowing more costly.
China Merchant Holding International has been joined by Omani sovereign wealth fund, the State General Reserve Fund, on the project but there has been little progress on building the infrastructure. The companies could not be reached for comment.
Critics say the project is too much soon for a nation with solid growth but big infrastructure gaps.
Instead, they say the government should focus on improving Dar es Salaam's port, which handles 90 percent of exports and is growing at 10 percent per year.
"Unfortunately, I think they lost a bit of focus. There is a need for more coordination and clear direction on priority projects," said Jacques Morisset, the World Bank's lead country economist.
Tanzania, a former socialist state, is struggling to shake its image as aid-dependent. Last month, the acting port authority director was suspended amid a corruption inquiry, two years after his predecessor was similarly ousted.
Across the region, fast-growing economies have launched infrastructure projects at a scale unprecedented in most of Africa.
Many are hitting bottlenecks. Kenya, east Africa's top economy, is upgrading Mombasa port and says it plans to move ahead with a long-delayed megaport in Lamu, an ancient Arab trading post near the border with Somalia.
The Bagamoyo plan, 10 km from Bagamoyo town, a tentative UN World Heritage Site which has the crumbling remains of a slave market and other remnants of the East African slave trade, was unveiled during a visit of the Chinese premier in 2013.
It is meant to ease congestion in Dar es Salaam and transform a depressed area into a trade and manufacturing hub. Yet there are practical difficulties, not least that Bagamoyo's port, unlike Dar es Salaam's, would most likely need regular, extensive dredging.
"Bagamoyo is a really good example of a white elephant," said one analyst who focuses on infrastructure. "If you're going to have two major ports, then isn't the place to have it in the south, where the gas is?"
Tanzania has up to 53.28 trillion cubic feet of off-shore gas, putting it on par with some Middle East producers, but it has yet to construct a liquefied natural gas plant.
Plans to upgrade Tanzania's central corridor rail line that connects mineral-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo to the coast are moving slowly.
"If you improve only the ports without improving the railway, you are not doing anything," Shaaban Mwinjaka, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Transport, told Reuters.
In the meantime, Dar es Salaam has problems of its own. The World Bank recently issued a stark assessment of the efficiency of a port expected to reach capacity within a decade.
Last September, the Bank signed a $565m deal to nearly double Dar's capacity by 2020.
"If the port was as efficient as Mombasa, which is certainly not a great benchmark, the country would make almost $2bn profit gain per year," said World Bank economist Morisset.
At the port, in Tanzania's biggest city, warehouses are being raised to handle more goods and machinery is being brought in to convert general cargo wharfs into container terminals, while there are plans to deepen two berths to make way for bigger ships.
Back in Bagamayo, artisans sip tea as they wait for the odd tourist to amble by.
"They've been talking about this (port) project for so, so long, but there's no action," said Rast Mwite, a painter who sells leather sandals and chairs cut from coconut wood. "But people, they hope."
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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